


The Peppermint Taste

by AddioKira



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, Femslash, Flirting, Law School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 09:26:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AddioKira/pseuds/AddioKira
Summary: Paige asked Kim out for a celebratory drink after their Colorado filing went through. But Paige's motives may not be entirely professional.





	The Peppermint Taste

“M _ mm _ m,” Paige said, straightening over her mug. “You weren’t kidding about these.”

“Yeah, it’s, um, fresh ginger?” Kim said. “I guess they make a simple syrup out of it?” She had only the vaguest idea what simple syrup was, but that was what Rich Schweikart had told her as he’d drained the dregs of his mug at that long-ago lunch, and it sounded kind of impressive.

“Mm,” Paige said, taking another sip. “Old school, I like it.” She raised her mug to Kim. “To Colorado!”

 “Colorado,” Kim echoed, lifting her mug to clink Paige’s. 

“I can’t believe you pulled that filing off so fast,” Paige said, setting her mug back down on the bar. “This rate, we’re three weeks ahead of schedule, and under budget. Kevin was dancing on air, you know?”

 “Mm,” Kim said. She’d dropped some extra Visine into her eyes before coming out, but they still felt dry from too many hours in front of a screen. The filing had gone out to the Colorado Commission - with an e-mailed copy to Kevin and Paige - at three p.m. exactly, and all Kim had wanted to do was go home and curl up in bed. Instead, she curled up on her office sofa, first jiggling her door handle to make sure it was locked. She had only just settled in and closed her eyes when her phone buzzed with a text. She sighed, and contemplated not answering it, but then considered the chaos that would likely ensue if she failed to respond to Jimmy in good time. She groped on her end table for her phone and flipped it open to find a text, not from Jimmy, but from Paige.

  _Filing looks perfect - I can’t thank you enough._

 And then, after a pause: _want to grab a drink later, celebrate?_

 Kim stared at her phone. Paige had her cell for after-hours emergencies, of course, but she’d never texted her on it. She always used e-mail.

 Kim considered ignoring the text until she got an hour’s worth of sleep, but then she remembered. _Client. Don’t say no to the client._

  _Sure_ , she texted back. _I know a place with a great moscow mule_.

 “So, is Kevin joining us?” Kim asked, making an effort to stop speaking in grunts.

 “Oh - not tonight,” Paige said. “His youngest’s in the citywide youth symphony? I guess it’s the big spring concert.”

“Right, I remember,” Kim said, even though she couldn’t. She had to picture Kevin’s office, where the framed pictures of his kids had pride of place, including his youngest daughter posing with - with her-

 Kim snapped her fingers. “Double bass,” she said.

 “Yeah, first chair this year too, he can’t stop gushing,” Paige said. “I think that’s probably why he was pushing for the filing to go out today, honestly - so he could enjoy the concert without anything over his head. Really nice work.”

 “Thank you,” Kim said. “And, uh, thanks for asking me out tonight. It’s nice to get out.”

  

Her office had started to smell a little. Not like anything foul or rank, but just stale, like old cigarettes, takeout boxes, and a bit of I-can-shower-later. The papers had piled up around her desk, boxing her into a tiny square in front of her keyboard. And then, of course, there was Jimmy.

 It would have been bad if Jimmy had stayed in - what was it? A mood? A snit? 

  _A spurt_ , she thought, and even though that was completely the wrong word, it was also sort of right, in a way. They’d been out at that resort bar, having fun, and then suddenly his face contorted and he’d _spurted_ bitterness, as though he were a boil that had been prodded one too many times. She’d seen it before - God she’d seen him angry before, resentful, enraged, even violent. But that was the first time he’d ever scared her, and she couldn’t even say why.

 So yeah, it would have been bad if Jimmy had stayed in his _spurt_. But even worse was the day after, when he started to overcorrect, and hadn’t stopped.

He’d come in from whatever shoot he’d arranged that afternoon with a latte she hadn’t asked for, and tried to chat about the travails of his makeshift film crew, until she said that she was swamped and they’d have to catch up later. Then he’d ordered her dinner - again, unasked - and waved her off when she’d balked at the expense.

 “I have leftovers in the fridge from yesterday,” she’d said.

 “Leftovers,” he’d scoffed. “You’re burning it at both ends, you need something hot. C’mon, dig in.”

 She’d sighed, said “thanks,” and eaten as much of it as she could stand, before her stomach started to twist, and her throat started to close. The rest of the dinner had gone into the fridge to congeal, next to the leftovers from the day before, and as she shoved it in, she remembered when she was ten, digging plastic bags of stale bread ends out of the kitchen trash to toast so that she could have dinner. It didn’t do her stomach any good.

After they’d eaten, Jimmy had waited for three hours and fifteen minutes, then finally ducked his head into her office to say “I was just gonna head home, you think you’re about-”

 “Sorry,” she’d said immediately. “Got too much to do. I’ll be home later.”

 He’d grimaced, trying to keep the humor in his face and the cheer in his voice. “Another all-nighter, huh?”

 “We’ll see,” she said, and when he didn’t leave, she looked up again. “Seriously, go home. I’ll see you later.”

 He’d gone, and she’d finally felt like she could breathe again. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, elbows propped against the desk, and decided she could go another five hours before she’d have to crash on her sofa.

  

“I mean, of course,” Paige said. “I bet you need a break, all the hours you’ve been putting in.”

 That could go either way, Kim realized. Praise for her work ethic, or a dig at billing too many hours for the finished product. Her chest tightened.

 “Actually,” Paige said, “I didn’t just ask you here to celebrate.”

  _They’re firing me,_ Kim thought. _I’m too expensive or I’m too slow or they’re expanding into Nevada and Utah and Texas and they need a full-service firm, or-_

 “I wanted to apologize,” Paige said, and the breath froze in Kim’s throat. “You know,” Paige continued. “For the other day.”

 “I don’t-” Kim started, but Paige waved a hand, then took a long sip from her drink.

 “I just keep thinking about what you said, about Charles McGill? Taking down a sick man?” Paige said. “And I feel like - I dunno. Celebrating it, I mean, telling you how great it was.” She shook her head. “I didn’t really… I guess I wasn’t thinking of him as sick. I feel like I was acting like a complete ghoul.”

 “Oh my God, Paige, _no_ ,” Kim said, forgetting that with a client, she should be professional, reserved. “There’s nothing to apologize for. I mean - Chuck’s sick, don’t get me wrong, but-” She stopped, licked her lips. “I guess - he has kind of a talent for pissing people off.”

 Paige brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “I mean,” she said, “I wish you’d been there when he and Howard sat us down for that courtesy meeting. _Courtesy_ meeting. Courtesy my ass. He started going on about how you were the right one for the job, because all he does is read regulatory reports for fun and just happens to know the CRA by heart? I mean, it was so transparent, and he wouldn’t even give us the courtesy of telling us that he was going to give us a sales pitch. I could have throttled him right there.”

 “I-” Kim started. “I just thought he convinced you.”

 Paige snorted. “Not me, anyway. And honestly? Kevin was pretty pissed too. I gave him an earful in the car back to the office, and he was right there with me.”

 Kim’s throat was dry, and she took in a mouthful of Moscow mule before she could speak again. “So what happened?” she asked.

 “He was just too worried. I mean, about you being a solo practitioner, and it being too much work. He wanted this aggressive expansion strategy, and he thought it wasn’t fair to put it all on one person. I told him I thought you could handle it, but it was his decision.” Paige smirked at Kim then. “We sure proved him wrong.”

 Kim managed a smile. “Cheers to that,” she said, and they both drank.

 “Mmm,” Paige said. “These go down a little too easy. You ready for another?”

 Kim looked into her mug and found that she was.

 “But, I mean,” Paige continued after she’d placed their order, “that’s not an excuse. If Chuck’s really mentally ill - and I _really_ think he is - I hope he gets help.”

 “Yeah,” said Kim,

  _his own fault_

“me too.” Her new drink came, and she slurped at it, the ginger burning her tongue a little. “I guess - you can’t help but get vindictive when someone pisses you off like that.”

 “I’ll say,” Paige said. “These guys, they think they can just steamroll you because they had to take their lumps when they were coming up, so now they get to dish it out. But the whole mindset is just toxic, it spoils the whole profession for everybody else.” She ducked her head to sip her drink without lifting the mug, then leaned her cheek in one hand to look at Kim. “You want to know why I went in-house? A partner hit me.”

 Kim wrenched herself from the depths of her mug and stared at Paige, horrified. “ _No_.”

 “ _Yes_ ,” Paige said. “I was doing this CLE with him at a client site, on FIRREA? It was my first year, so I was this lowly peon, and I was doing his PowerPoint slides, you know, ticking them forward as he got through the bullet points? Well, on one slide, he decided to tell this meandering story about the FDIC, and about halfway through, I thought he was supposed to be on the next slide, so I push the button to go forward, right? And he’s not done, so he hits me. In the arm, right here.” She pointed to her right forearm. “So I click the slide back immediately, but I’m looking around, my arm _kills_ , and I just - I’m trying to figure out, has anybody seen it?”

 “Had anybody?” Kim asked.

 Paige rolled her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “The CFO of the client company.”

 “So - what did he do?”

 “What do you think?” Paige asked, and she tapped her straw into her mug. “He saw me look at him? And he just looked away.”

 Kim let a breath out through her teeth. “ _Je_ sus.”

 “Right?” Paige said. “I mean, honestly, I think he - the partner, I mean - would have said he was just trying to be playful, like ‘aw shucks you messed up there pardner,’ but…” Her eyes unfocused, and she kept tapping her straw, as she stared past Kim’s shoulder. “They just have to protect themselves, those guys. And each other. I had a bruise for two weeks and that partner just pretended nothing ever happened, and no one said anything. Not even me.”

 She shook herself then, blinking. “I mean. I never said anything, but I started shopping my resume around the next week. I was terrified of getting caught, even more terrified that people would think I couldn’t hack it at a firm. But it turned out good. I mean - I eventually got an interview with Kevin and we just hit it off immediately. It took me six months to get there, but I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for that asshole hitting me.” She grinned then, a genuine smile, and it lit up her face so much that Kim couldn’t help but smile back.

“That’s fantastic,” Kim said.

 “I mean, I figure something like that must have happened to you, working with someone like _Charles McGill_ ,” Paige said, comically deepening her voice at the name. “I mean, you have to have a horror story, right?”

 Kim felt her smile drop. “I - don’t-” she started.

 “Oh c’mon,” Paige said, “this isn’t a job interview where you, like, can’t talk trash about your last job or else they’ll think you’re a snitch. It’s just _us_ , right?” She lifted her hand as though to playfully slap Kim on the shoulder, but at the last minute, she stopped herself. Instead, she just poked Kim’s shoulder with her index finger. “So c’mon,” she said. “What’s the worst lawyer thing anyone’s done to you?”

  _Howard turning on the open-plan HHM staircase, career death in his eyes as neon-melon-suited Betsy Kettleman flounced out of the office, Craig meekly in tow. But what was worse was when she’d been taken back into the fold, the faux-cheer in Howard’s voice when he invited her to “bask in the glow” of the deal she’d set up for them in the first place. And Howard at the press conference, taking all the credit._

 “Kim?”

  _“You didn’t think_ I _deserved a heads-up?”_

  _“I didn’t realize-” and then stopping herself, knowing what would happen to Jimmy if she finished by saying “he hadn’t told Clifford.” Swallowing it down. Chuck keeping his face carefully blank, but seeming to savor the consequences of her trusting his brother. And then, after she was dismissed, waiting for Julie to knock on her door, her eyes darting from side to side, clearing her throat to say “Sorry Kim, but - uh. Howard says you should pack up-”_

 “Kim?”

  _Taking her degree out of her document box, considering, then putting it back in, thinking,_ why bother? _Howard’s face, carefully blank after she’d debased herself by telling him that she hadn’t put Chuck up to pulling her out of doc review. And then Howard transforming, all smiles, as soon as he thought Kevin and Paige could see him._

 “Kim, are you okay?”

 Kim started. “Sorry!” she said. “Sorry.” She propped her elbow on the bar and rubbed her eyes. “Just-”

 “Are you that tired?” Paige asked, and her look spelt dangerous concern.

 “This is just stronger than I thought it’d be,” Kim said. “I’m spacing out a little.”

 “Um,” Paige said, “right,” and Kim knew she hadn’t been convincing enough.

 “Just - when you asked, I started thinking back to when I was in law school?” Kim said, frantically delving into memory for a suitable horror story. “And I was doing moot court, my first year doing it. They did a practice argument, where I was teamed up on a mock motion to dismiss with this guy - like, God’s gift to law school, this guy, his dad was a judge in another state, and he wore bow ties to class. And I tried to get him to work on the argument, but no matter how many e-mails I sent, he just didn’t show up. So I wrote the entire argument by myself, stayed up all night perfecting it, and by the time I had to argue it, I was a wreck.”

  _Shouldn’t have said that_ , she realized belatedly, but she had to keep going.

 “So, um, the school was pretty connected, they asked actual judges to judge our arguments as, like, a surprise to the students? So when I showed up to the argument-”

 “Oh _no_ ,” Paige said, and she sounded so sympathetic that Kim couldn’t help but smile. 

 “I was terrified going into that room!” Kim said. “And I was the defendant, so I had to argue my motion to dismiss right out of the gate, and I was just _awful_. I was sweating, I stuttered - I knew how bad I’d done before I was even halfway through my argument, just by the look on the judge’s face. So I finished, and I sat down, and I just started crying.”

 “ _Ohhh_ ,” Paige said in sympathy, and Kim realized she shouldn’t have said that either. But she kept going.

 “And I cried - like, quiet sniffles - through the plaintiff’s argument, until I realized that I had to get up right after and do a reply.”

 “Oh my _god_ ,” Paige said. “What did you do?”

 “I started taking notes! Like, frantic, trying for any weakness in their argument, no matter how tiny, just any hole I could poke in it, _pew_ , _pew_ , _pew_ ,” Kim said, poking the air with an index finger. “I was completely desperate, I had no idea if any of them would work, I just knew I had to say something. So I got up, and I knew my eyes were just blood red, my face was completely blotchy, and there were no tissues so I probably had snot running out of my nose, but I gave a reply argument, best one I could pull out of my ass in the moment.”

 “Oof,” said Paige. “So you - I mean, you had to have-”

 “Won,” finished Kim, her mouth turning up at the memory. “I _won_. The judge said it wasn’t even close. I’d just - mopped the floor with them, and I hadn’t even realized I’d done it.”

 Paige breathed out, and rested her forehead in both hands. “That’s incredible.”

 “Yeah, well. I was so happy that I didn’t think to report my trial partner to the moot court advisor for slacking off. And I found out later that he’d told her that _he’d_ written the argument - and that’s why I was so nervous when I presented it. Because he’d given it to me the night before, and I didn’t know it well enough.”

 Paige sighed her disgust. “So what did you do?”

 Kim huffed a laugh, and smiled. “Nothing,” she said. “We got our rating as a team, and we got shuffled around in the next trial so I just said - nothing.” 

 Even as it was coming out of Kim’s mouth, she couldn’t believe what she was saying. “I mean,” she said, trying to salvage herself, “I was this lowly scholarship student, on work study and up to my eyeballs in debt, and his father was, like, deigning to be a constitutional law guest speaker, so I thought if I’d said something, he’d-”

 “It’s okay,” Paige said, and she took Kim’s hand in hers.

 It wasn’t until Paige took her hand that Kim realized she was crying - crying with the memory, the humiliation, the terror, and the shame she’d thought she’d left behind her. She tried to tug her hand away, but Paige held it, her fingers lacing into Kim’s. “Hey, I get it,” Paige said. “It’s okay.” She held Kim’s hand as Kim covered her eyes with the other, breathing deeply, trying to calm herself down. 

 When she thought she could speak again without her voice shaking, she said “I’m-”

 “Don’t you say sorry!” Paige said, and Kim looked up to confirm that she was smiling. “That wasn’t fair of me to ask for your horror story. I just couldn’t resist.”

 She let go of Kim’s hand, and picked up her mug to sip, leaving Kim baffled.

 “I just thought back to that ABA mixer,” Paige said. “You were so, like - dynamic. Talkative. You’re really professional with Kevin and me, but I wanted to see that Kim again, you know?”

 Kim knew. She’d been drinking at that mixer - not drunk, but after losing a prospective client to another, bigger Santa Fe firm, she’d let go, letting some guy whose name she couldn’t quite remember buy a group of them bourbon shots, and Paige had been there with them. She’d decided not to be such a lawyer, to just be friendly, and the people there had responded. They’d laughed with her, and stayed out until the bar had shut down, waving out of the windows of taxis, and vowing to e-mail each other the next day. None of them had. Embarrassed, most likely - Kim certainly was. But then, they were the ones who were most responsive when Kim started cold-calling during her weeks of disgrace at HHM.

 “I guess sometimes it’s hard to know how professional you have to be,” Kim said warily.

 Paige puffed out her cheeks. “Tell me about it,” she said. “Like, every single part of your life has to just fall into this compartment, and it can never meet the other part, right? _God_. It’s like living in two different worlds, except it’s just half of you in each world, you know? So like, none of you feels like it’s together, like you’re just sleepwalking - no, _zombie_ -walking through every different part of your life.” She glanced at Kim, sidelong. “That’s why I had to break up with my girlfriend.”

 Kim opened her mouth, then had to force herself to say something. “I - didn’t know-”

 “Oh, no, it was before your time,” Paige said, waving one hand before picking up her mug and sipping again. “I mean - it wasn’t _my_ issue, Kevin may be a good ol’ boy in the boardroom, but like, his oldest’s gay, and he’s super supportive. Goes to Pride, all ‘I love my live gay son.’ But my girlfriend, she just couldn’t get her head around it.”

 Kim breathed in, but couldn’t seem to breathe out.

  _I just don’t want life to be hard for you! her mother saying, spittle running down the grooves lining the sides of her chin._

  _We were just holding hands, just friends, Kim saying, her face burning from the shame, the lie, the girl’s peppermint gum still lingering on her tongue._

  _The relief, in the months - the years after, when she’d gone to dances with boys, feeling herself heat up when they’d kissed her, feeling them hard against her thigh. It was just a phase, she’d thought, it wasn’t anything._

  _Until the night in college she’d been backed against the wall of the student union by Tiana and felt the same thing, gasping into the night air over her shoulder, leaning her hips into Tiana’s hands. How she’d never called Tiana after that night, and ignored her texts._

 “And, like,” Paige was saying, “Kevin’d, he’d invite us to double dates, right, with his wife? Or to the Christmas party. But Amy - she’d always say ‘that’s not for _us_.’”

 “What - what does that mean?” Kim asked.

 “Oh, I mean, like - when we were in law school together, and they’d have a dance, she’d say ‘that’s not for people like us,’ meaning it was for the straights, right? And most of the people there, they wouldn’t say boo, but she was so uncomfortable about it, I couldn’t insist, right?”

 “Right,” Kim said.

 “But I mean, you can only live your life like that so far, right? And Kevin - he seems intimidating, but really, he’d invite Amy to dinner the same way he’d invite, like… just anyone. He doesn’t care, as long as I’m happy. And I guess….” She trailed off, and sucked her lower lip into her mouth. “I guess I want to live my life like that, for real. Invite my girlfriend to the summer barbecue and hold hands. Invite my wife to dinner with Kevin and his wife, and not worry about whether that’s ‘for us’ or not. I want to live in just _one_ world, no code switching, no compartmentalization. And it wasn’t fair to Amy, if she wasn’t ready. And she wasn’t, so, I just had to let her go.” Paige shrugged, looking into her mug. “But it’s not like it wasn’t a big deal. It really screwed me up.” She looked up at Kim. “You don’t think I’m the world’s biggest asshole, right?”

 “God, _no_ ,” Kim said without thinking about it. “I mean, you have to live your life the way that feels… like _you_.”

 “Mm,” Paige said. “So, speaking of which, the summer barbecue's coming up, and Kevin told me to invite you. Want to come?” She had her straw between her fingers again, and was tapping it, up and down, up and down in her mug.

 “I-” Kim said, her brain stuttering. “I mean - I’d love to, but not - not to hold hands, right?”

Paige gave Kim a sideways smile. “Why not?”

 “I mean-” Kim said, “It’d be unethical, you’re my client-”

 “Mesa Verde’s your client,” Paige said. “I’m just an employee.”

 “Oh, come _on_ ,” Kim said, “for privilege purposes, sure, but I can’t date my client’s employee. That’s still unethical.”

 “I could always tell Kevin to fire you,” Paige said. “Oh - oh come _on_ , I’m just kidding!” she continued when she saw the look that had blossomed on Kim’s face. “Really, Kevin would _kill_ me, I’d be sabotaging our Colorado expansion, not to mention Utah.” She drank again, making a slurping sound at the bottom of her mug. “Still,” she said. “You’re the one who thought about holding hands, not me.”

 Kim didn’t know whether she ought to laugh or leave. She straightened to stare straight ahead of her, and didn’t notice anything until the bartender ducked into her line of sight and asked “are you ready for another, ma’am?”

 “I-” Kim started, but Paige ducked her head into her peripheral vision.

 “I think we’re ready for our check, actually, thank you.”

  _Oh God_ , Kim thought. _That’s it. I’ve fucked it up, it’s over._ The apology, halfhearted handshakes, and she’d be off to another round of cold-calling, marking time until her savings ran first low, then out. And Jimmy would be no help, she knew his bank account was gone, his credit cards maxed, just to prove to her that he wasn’t desperate.

 

 And back in the first days of their shared office, the day she’d pushed Jimmy into one of the defunct dentist chairs and straddled him, relishing how he’d gasped when she’d ground into him, thinking that even if Mesa Verde had gone back to HHM, at that moment, she didn’t want anything that she didn’t already have. Not realizing what he’d done, how it would lead her to now, when she could barely bring herself to touch him, and avoided her own apartment whenever he was there.

 

 “Here,” Kim said, reaching for the bill, but Paige snaked it from under her hand.

 “No way,” Paige said. “The one who asks has to pay, right?”

 Kim reached for the bill again, but Paige pulled it away. “I insist,” she said, and stuck a wad of cash into the leather folder. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

 Kim stood, wondering whether she’d be unsteady on her feet, but she was clear-headed.

 The bar abutted a hotel, and although Kim had parked her own car in a cheap parking lot a block away, Paige had sprung for valet parking. So Kim waited in the vestibule with Paige for her car, watching the light fade.

 “Thanks for coming out,” Paige said. “We’ll have to do this again.”

 “Yeah, of course,” Kim said. 

 “I mean it,” Paige said. “Not just ‘okayyy byeee, let’s do this again.’”

 “Okay - yeah,” Kim said. “I mean it too.”

 “Listen,” said Paige, “are you sure you’re okay?”

 Kim stared at her, how she tilted her head up slightly, how her mouth was just barely parted. It would be so easy to say _I don’t want to go home_ , and spill out all of her frustrations, her fear, her intuition that none of what she had was going to last much longer and she had to hold on to the one good thing she could get out of her life while she could, before everything turned to ash and collapsed around her.

 Instead, she forced a smile. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. I’ll be ready to go on Utah first thing tomorrow.”

 “Utah,” Paige repeated. “Okay.” And it was in that neutral, unbelieving tone Kim had learned to mistrust.

 Kim swallowed, wondering how to convince her that she was telling the truth. “Listen-” she started.

 Paige shook her head. “Look,” she said. “I get it, I really do. But if you ever feel like bending the rules a little?” She smiled, looked down, then stood on tiptoe, hooking one hand around Kim’s neck, and kissing her on the mouth. She stayed there, hovering for two seconds before dropping back to her heels and giving Kim a grin. “You’re all pink,” Paige said, brushing Kim’s cheek, and then her car was pulled around, and she left, ducking her head and waving out the passenger side window.

 Kim was left standing with only the valet for company.

 “Can I get your car, miss?” he asked.

 “I don’t want to go home,” she said, and she couldn’t tell how loud she was speaking.

 “I’m sorry, miss?” the valet asked.

 “Sorry,” Kim said. “I was just talking to myself.”


End file.
